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THE SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE
6.1
Life in Divine Communion is
realized as a Condition in which one is lived, in which one
is not an independent entity but an expression of a Great
Process. This sense becomes constant in the spiritual
realization of Prasad, the Celebration of the Universal
Sacrifice, which is expressed as the whole life of service
and the meditation of Breath and Name in the Way of Divine
Communion, and the developments of the conscious process and
of conductivity in all the following stages of the Way of
Divine Ignorance, or Radical Understanding.
6.3
Divine as a common seeker, but
approach the Divine on the basis of the Teaching, when it
has made its point in you.
When the Teaching has made its
point, the individual comes to the Presence of Grace with
gratitude, in a spirit of self-sacrifice (or self-giving),
surrender and submission. If the individual's approach to me
is not made on the basis of intelligent response to the
Teaching and through profound and loving self-surrender,
sacrifice, and service, all via the forms of the stated
conditions of life and meditation, the spiritual connection
or communication of the Graceful Power of the Real, which is
my sacrificial service to all, may not be initiated.
Instead, my only response will continue to be the
enforcement of rudimentary instruction and disciplines, and
the individual will only continue to endure great difficulty
in the realization of Divine Communion and the practice of
this Way of Divine Ignorance. The right approach of an
individual to me is the one in which he or she realizes
actual, transcendental establishment in Divine Communion
through constant practical sacrifice or service to me,
directly and in the form of all relations, founded in the
intelligence and intuitive response which develops relative
to my Teaching. When the true relationship that is realized
through this whole and intelligent life of sacrifice
appears, the Power which is Present may be communicated to
the individual. When this initiation begins, the Presence
works through transcendental spiritual influence on the life
and living consciousness of the individual at all times,
under all conditions, as long as he lives and acts as
conscious, present, and intelligent sacrifice to this
Presence by which I am recognized.
This spiritual influence may at
times be felt as various spontaneous and yogic modifications
of body, emotions, life-force, nervous system functions,
breath, or mind, and in any of the three common states,
waking, dreaming, or sleeping. But the essential form of the
effect of my spiritual influence in the initial stages will
be a quickening of the revelation of the content and
concealed strategies of the individual's ordinary and
relational life. In any case, whatever the effects that are
perceived and identified, the Way is neither to indulge nor
suppress these qualities that arise, but simply to observe
them while persisting in the simple practices of the Way of
Divine Communion. The true sacrificial approach to God, the
true turning of self to the practice of devotion, which is
the whole life made to serve the Divine Presence under all
conditions, ensures that our spiritual connection is alive
and my quickening and awakening influence will be effective.
The continuous consideration of my argument, my criticisms,
and my instructions establishes you in a right relationship
to the effects generated in your life by my constant
Presence.
6.4
Those who are about to sit with me
for the first time are instructed not to perform deliberate
meditation practices or other subjective and self-possessed
strategies. They should come naturally, as devotees in
Truth, surrendering, and resting in natural attention to me.
In due course, the meditation will arise of itself (if the
devotee is present as service, sacrifice of self, or loving
surrender, in the mood of dependence on Grace). There will
be an undeniable sense of Presence, and a natural ease of
body and mind, in which it is spontaneously observed that
there is a play of the whole body, timed with the breath, of
reception on inhalation and release on exhalation, all of
which is a mysterious and blissful cooperation with and
participation in the Presence. Thereafter, but only if this
evidence has appeared on its own and undeniably, as a
Graceful revelation in my Company, the spiritual practices
may begin to be applied, a little at a time, both formally
and randomly, along with the whole foundation life of
sacrifice, loving service, or surrender of self in
dependence on Grace.
6.5
There must be direct, communicated
initiation into the Presence that is God. If the Divine does
not impinge upon you, drawing you into relationship
independent of all sense of dilemma, effort, and strategy,
then the practices of the Way of Divine Communion cannot be
true of you. I am present simply for the sake of this
communication and awakening in your case. Study the
Teaching, take up all the conditions of life and service,
meet regularly to consider and appreciate all of this with
other devotees, and so be always prepared to meet me in
appropriate fashion when I sit with devotees from time to
time each year. If you have so prepared yourself and then
come to sit with me with loving surrender of attention and
the whole body, then, after even one or two such occasions,
you should be able to take up the practices of the Name of
God and the Breath of God.
6.6
The key to the realization of the
Way of Divine Communion is that all responsibilities and
practices, indeed, the very being, all functions, and the
whole life or existence must become conscious, devotional
(sacrificial) relationship to the Divine Presence. The
communicated Presence is the Real, felt through the
"emotion" that is the psyche or living being.
The "breathing" of the Presence is
direct, from the heart or feeling being, not indirect, via
fixation of attention in various extended functions or
centers and the resultant inwardness (concentrating,
contracting the field of attention, turning in or away from
the all-pervading Presence), in which the Presence is
exclusively reduced to yogically perceived energies or
conditions flowing inside the functional form. In such
indirect realization of the Presence, the Presence is felt
relative to its effects, not directly, as itself. The
practice of the Way of Divine Communion depends on the
central capacity of the devotee, not the secondary ability
of the yogi or spiritual technician.
Even so, there is a level of
technical responsibility that is to be naturally realized by
devotees. The practices in the various stages of the Way of
Divine Ignorance are forms of this responsibility. But all
practices are to be realized in direct relationship to the
intuited. Reality, not in indirect, separative, or
self-meditative" fashion.
6.7
The principle of every practice of
spiritual life is heart-attention, or attention as
contemplative feeling toward or into the Divine, rather than
merely conceptual or mind-attention, which is not seated in
the psychic being (but only in its extensions in the head,
the brain, the mind). Thus, the devotee is obliged to feel
the all-pervading Presence with his or her whole being
Spiritual practice must be done, from the heart region, the
center of this mind-body, with emotion or feeling from the
heart which is the root or psychic being.
6.8
In the Way of Divine Communion, the
Divine Reality is intuited from the heart (the feeling,
psychic being) as all-pervading Presence. That is, the
Divine is not thus felt from the point of view of body or
emotion or mind in themselves, and thus perceived as an
Object that has a specific location, dimension, and center.
Rather, the Divine Presence is truly felt only when body,
emotion, and mind are released into the Presence and cease
to create a point of view or independent self position. When
these functions are yielded and cease to distract and define
the conscious being, then the conscious or feeling, psychic
being also ceases to limit and objectify the Real. When the
being thus becomes devotion or sacrificial attention to the
Divine through service in the form of all actions, then the
Divine begins, by Grace, to be felt-intuited as a
non-objective (non-Objective) Presence that is not truly
describable (since it has no location, no dimensions, no
form, and no center), except that it is clearly felt, and
absorbs the being from the heart under all conditions. The
realized Presence of the Divine Reality with which or in
which devotees enjoy heart-felt Communion of the entire
being, is thus described to be all-pervading rather than
specific or limited.
Clearly, Communion with the
Presence is realized only through devotion, through service
of the whole being. The Presence to which the mind may turn
on the basis of mere description and belief is an Object
known by the separated body, emotion, and mind.
The true practice of the Name of
God and the Breath of God depends on prior awakening to the
all pervading Presence through devotional service or
sacrifice of the living being to the Divine in the form of
the Spiritual Master, who is only nakedly Present to display
the Divine Presence to all beings.
6.9
The practice of the Breath of God
(and the Name of God) in the Way of Divine Communion is not
an intentional esoteric practice of participation in the
descending and the ascending vehicles of psycho physical
life. It is simply the natural process of reception-release.
It is not directional or functionally specific. Inhalation
involves reception, but not specifically from any direction
nor toward any specific place within the body-being. Just
so, exhalation involves release, but not toward any specific
location. The practice is founded upon relationship of the
whole and ultimately undefined body-being, through the
natural process of heart-felt reception-release, to the
prior (not directional) and all-pervading Divine
Presence.
6.10
The Way of Divine Communion is the
way of right action from the heart (or as heart-felt
participation of the whole, undefined body-being).
Therefore, no other technical elaborations, leading to
esoteric manipulation of the life-force, the mind, or the
body are given. It is devotional practice, first through
ordinary action. When appropriate, the conventionally
subjective (self-meditative) mechanisms (body, life-force,
and mind) are turned also to the Presence of God through the
breath. And the Name of God, or Divine Divine Recollection,
is the instrument for maintaining the essential being in
conscious, sacrificial relationship to the Presence, even if
both objective and subjective actions (including body
consciousness and breathing) are suspended in profound,
absorbing contemplation. This contemplation or recollection
of the Presence can even continue apart from attention to
the breath cycle. (Thus, the practice of the Name of God, or
recollection of the Presence, may go on at random times
independent of the Breath of God, whereas the Breath of God
may not be practiced without recollection of the
Presence.)
6.11
The Breath of God is not to be
generated repetitively but at random. It may, in any
instance, be continued, breath by breath, through several
cycles, even an indefinite number of cycles, but it should
be natural, a response to the awakened sense of the Presence
(the process of the Name of God). The natural state of
intuitive contemplation of the Presence, or practice of the
Name of God (with or without the Name "God" in any moment)
is, in itself, deep, constant, steady, and independent of
the fluctuations of breath, thought, attention, reception,
or release.
6.12
The Way of Divine Communion
involves the realization of a process of simple
"conductivity," or reception and release, from a transformed
or benign center (heart-felt sacrifice), within and relative
to the Divine Condition and Presence. It is devotional
reception and release in the Divine Presence.
6.13
The spiritual process in the Way of
Divine Communion is a cycle: (1) receive (with inhalation,
or at random) the Divine Presence or all-pervading
Radiation, (2) release (with exhalation, or at random) all
forms of circumstance, body, mind, and self into the Divine
Presence, which is prior to body, mind, self, and
worlds.
This becomes absorption or release
of defined or independent consciousness in radical intuition
of the Divine or Real Condition in the case of those whose
devotion is perfect at last.
6.14
The Divine Presence may at times be
felt to be "breathed" independent of the action of breath.
This is an intuitive experience or version of yogic "kumbak"
or breath-retention. The breath may stop for the time being,
or simply go on unnoticed. Thus, the Name of God (or
contemplation of the Presence) may occur spontaneously
without the Breath of God in the bodily sense. But the
Breath of God may not appear and be true independent of the
literal recollection, contemplation, or present re-attention
to the Divine Presence.
6.15
The devotional discipline of the
Name of God is that aspect of the Way of Divine Communion
that directly involves the mind. It is not mere exercise of
the mind, but devotion to the all-pervading Presence with
and through mind, whose root-seat is in the heart, not in
the head. (Thoughts may appear to arise or be reflected in
the head, but mind, the origin of thoughts, is rooted in the
heart.)
In this discipline, the mind is
released from its separate and separative position as
thinker and thoughts outside the heart, in the regions of
the head, reflecting what is below and what is above.
Rather, it is focused at its root-seat, in and through the
heart or psychic, feeling being. Thus, the practice of the
Name of God is not thought about God, but simple, conscious,
heart-felt recollection, or surrender of thought and mind in
the present moment, to the all-pervading Presence that is
God or the Divine Reality. The device of the verbal Name
"God" is simply a way of randomly bringing the mind out of
its wandering among arbitrary desires, images, concepts, and
visions. This device may be used on occasion, particularly
when you are just beginning to adapt to the practice of the
Name of God. But the Name of God is not truly or ultimately
a word-object, a magical combination of sound-syllables. It
is a "meaning." That is, one should not dwell on the word
"God" as thought in the mind, but recollect and turn to
contemplate the all-pervading Presence with the mind, that
is, with feeling-attention from the heart. (Even where the
verbal Name is used it is to be recited and felt through the
heart, not in the head. Thus, it becomes an instrument for
recollecting the all-pervading Presence.) The Subject of the
Name of God is the meaning itself, which is the
all-pervading Divine Presence.
The mature practice of the Name of
God is simply to recollect the all-pervading Presence with
feeling-attention. In every moment this is done, the mind
automatically is released from all forms of thought and
becomes simple, heart-felt attention to the Presence. The
device of the verbal or mental Name "God" may be used at
random to serve this thoughtless attention to the Presence,
this simple recollection, but, more and more, the process
becomes felt recollection contemplation itself.
6.16
Recollection of the Presence is
coupled, in each moment, with the breathing of the Presence
and service to the Presence. This is the artful and complete
discipline of the Way of Divine Communion. It is heart felt
Communion of the being with the Presence under all
conditions, via the simultaneous devotion of all
functions.
In the Breath of God, the emotional
being rests from all random emotional, psychological, and
sexual states or distractions, and becomes focused as
heart-felt surrender, devotion, sacrifice of self, or
Communion with the Presence.
In service to the Presence, the
living physical being rests from all dramatizations, all
pursuit of fulfillment by experiences, high and low, all
desires, preferences, pleasures, pains, and resistance, and
becomes focused as heart-felt yielding, openness, and
dependence on the all-pervading Presence.
The triple discipline of the Way of
Divine Communion (Name, Breath, and Service) is complete in
itself, and obliges the devotee to profound maturity and
blissful Communion with the all-pervading Presence that is
God and Reality. It is the complete sacrificial way of
dependence on Grace. It is the most primitive or fundamental
religion. It is the heart or paradigm of all religion. It is
the Principle and Summation of all religious ways, except it
is founded in that mature human responsiveness that obviates
all childish and adolescent ways.
6.17
The practice of the Name of God is
simply recollection and contemplation of the all-pervading
Divine Presence from the heart. At first, and forever at
random, this recollection may be served by recitation of the
Name "God," with attention through its "meaning" to its
Subject, in and from the heart, or the feeling core of the
being. Such is recollection via the mind. Likewise, every
moment of service to the Divine is recollection via the
body. And every moment of the Breath of God is recollection
via the life. If the body is devoted to the service of the
Divine in every action, and the breath to living absorption
in the Divine in every moment, then the mind will easily
rest, in every moment, as attention in or via the heart, the
feeling being, to the Divine. Therefore, the more there is
of service and breath relative to the all-pervading Divine,
the less necessity there will be for the mind to concentrate
through the device of the objective, mental or verbal Name
"God." For this reason, as practice matures in the Way of
Divine Communion, less use is made of the objective Name,
and the more there is of simple, direct, contemplative,
absorptive recollection of the Presence. Likewise, as the
practice matures, the three aspects of practice (service,
the breath, and recollection, with or without the objective
Name) become artfully, naturally, and spontaneously combined
in a living, single intensity of being, present to the
all-pervading Divine Presence from the heart under all
conditions, via all functions. Such singleness is possible
only when body, life, and mind cease to function as
independent processes and become naturally focused as a fire
of felt attention of the whole being, from the heart, to the
Presence, under all conditions and through every action.
Such a being requires neither solitude, nor ideally positive
outward circumstances, nor any other complex condition
conducive to inwardness and conventional detachment, in
order to enjoy the heart-felt Bliss or Fire of Divine
Communion. Only such a one is on a liberating Path. All
others are on the path of tendency, inclination, desire, and
mere birth.
6.18
In the Way of Divine Communion, the
practice of the Name of God may involve, particularly in the
beginning, literal inward recitation of the Name "God" with
each breath (on inhalation-reception and again on
exhalation-release). At the same time, the mind should,
through awareness of the meaning of the Name, abide in
contemplation of the all-pervading Presence.
Thus, the practice of the
life-conditions as service to the Divine is a discipline
wherein the body or the navel (the living being) is turned
to the Presence under all conditions. The practice of the
Breath of God is a discipline wherein the emotional-psychic
being, the conventional heart, is turned to the Presence
under all conditions. And the practice of the Name of God is
a discipline wherein the mind or the head (the mental being)
is turned to the Presence under all conditions.
These three aspects of practice
must be united in a single, dynamic process of devotional
attention, in life and meditation, in devotees who are
maturing in the Way of Divine Communion. When the conditions
of mind, emotion, and body cease to be the distracting
principle of existence, but mind, emotion, and body are all
steadily turned and committed to the Process of
God-Realization in a single, most intense, and sacrificial
gesture of heart-felt Divine Communion, then the devotee may
adapt to the formal study and disciplines of the Way of
Relational Enquiry.
6.19
The all-pervading Presence is felt
through the eyes (or the crown), from the heart (the
emotional mind, the psyche, the conscious being itself),
with the whole body. It is not merely above, nor merely
within, but it is the Condition of all relations, all that
arises to the conscious being. It is the Condition of the
conscious being itself.
6.20
In the course of your practice in
the Way of Divine Communion, you may begin to feel that the
sense of the Divine Presence is weakening or becoming
absent, and that it is being replaced by a subjective sense
of "pure awareness" or the identification of the Divine and
the Spiritual Master with self. The true discipline and
responsibility is to maintain the devotional relationship to
the Divine and the Spiritual Master as Presence through all
the conditions of circumstance and activity. There should be
no indulgence of this fading of the Presence and the
subsequent inward, reflexive turning toward egoic
subjectivity. (Such would only be a reflection of the
subtler distraction of tendencies that appeared more
outwardly in the purely karmic, pre-devotional stage of your
life.) As this discipline proceeds, the conventional
contraction of the body-being should be replaced by a full
and stable (constant or general) sense of the Fullness of
the Divine Presence in the frontal or descended
body-being.
6.21
The Way of Divine
Communion:
Recollect or contemplate the
Presence.
Breathe the Presence.
Serve the Presence.
Do all of these under, as, and
through all conditions, including that of complete privacy
and repose. Do them as a constant, heart-felt, relational or
sacrificial discipline, founded in true hearing, or
intuitive yielding of the self-directed reflex into the
prior, unknowable, all-pervading Reality.
6.22
The Way of Divine Communion, in its
mature form, may be summarized as follows:
Serve the Divine, as the
all-pervading and Single Reality, with every action, under
all conditions, and also in, as, and through all beings,
with the entire heart-felt force of your being.
Feel the Divine, as the
all-pervading Presence, in all directions, through every
breath, with the entire heart-felt force of your
being.
Contemplate the Divine, as the
all-pervading Condition of all conditions, through the Name
"God," or through thoughtless recollection, from the heart
(the root of mind) with the entire heart-felt force of your
being.
As the devotee matures in this Way,
all of this is done naturally, simultaneously, simply and
easily. Until that maturity is enjoyed, the devotee must
adapt to the process as a discipline, in stages, gradually,
so that his participation becomes responsible, conscious,
and constant. At first, the work of adaptation to the Way of
Communion with the Divine awakens conflicts, preferences,
resistance, and unflattering self-knowledge. It is necessary
for it to be so, since the being is abandoning one form of
the use of functions (exploitation of desires) and adapting
them to another use (Communion with the Divine Reality via
the Great Law of Sacrifice). But the practice of the Way is
not mature as long as the devotee lives the discipline as
conflict with desires or the conventional objects of desire.
The practice and the devotee in this Way are mature only
when the discipline is natural, happy, intelligent, and free
of conflict with the ordinary tendencies of mere birth and
experience. When the three parts of the discipline are a
simultaneous, artful play under all circumstances, and
commitment to the Divine Process is full, so that there is
no conflict between discipline and obsessive desires, then
the devotee may engage the formal study and practice of the
Way of Relational Enquiry.
The usual man lives in conflict
with death, change, relationship, and the obligations to
self-sacrifice represented by all beings and conditions. The
mature devotee in the Way of Divine Communion participates
in these responsibly, consciously, and constantly, with the
entire force and every function of his or her life. Thus,
the devotee lives the condition of relationship as a
constant discipline, since life is a process of
relationship, not isolation, and his or her intimate
community or household of other devotees is a constant test
of the religious, spiritual, and personal illusions by which
he or she may tend to be possessed.
6.23
The formal exercises of Service,
the Breath, and the Name, from the heart, must become
moments of profound adaptation to Communion with the
all-pervading Divine Presence. Then, it will naturally
follow that all of the random conditions of your experience
will also tend to be lived by you as Divine Communion.
Therefore, those of you who have become stable in the
practical discipline, and who have enjoyed natural awakening
to the Divine Presence in the formal Communion with the
Spiritual Master, should, at all times, under all
conditions, with your whole being, from the heart, serve the
Divine Presence, breathe and feel the Divine Presence, and
contemplate the Divine Presence. Realize your very
existence, in every moment, as participation in the
Sacrament of Universal Sacrifice, or Prasad, in the
all-pervading Divine Presence. In every moment, from the
heart, recollect and feel the Presence, receive the
transforming Power of the Presence, release all conditions
into the Presence, and serve the Presence with every gesture
of body, emotion, life, and mind. Only a life so absorbed
and committed matures in the Way of Divine Communion until
present in a state of readiness for the Way of Relational
Enquiry. Let no one who is not so dependent on the Real
Divine presume to be ready for the conscious and esoteric
responsibilities which follow the Way of Divine
Communion.
6.24
The Way of Divine Communion is to
be lived by devotees until maturity. The evidence of such
maturity is (I) stable control over the life-functions in
the form of the general life-conditions, and (2) when in
formal meditation (which should develop, over time, to
include both the life-practice, and the subtle practices of
the Breath of God and the Name of God), the body rests in
the Presence of God (because it is yielded to the service
and the breathing of the Presence), the breath rests in the
Presence of God (because it is yielded to the cycle of
reception-release in the Presence), and the mind rests in
the Presence of God (because it is yielded to contemplation
of the Presence).
The practice of Divine Communion
develops in three stages. First the life-practice should be
maintained until subjective commitment to self-indulgence
eases, and there is a sense of Divine Presence, surrounding
and all-pervading. Then the breathing of the Presence, in
the simple form I have described, should begin, until the
breath becomes easy, strong, and full under all
circumstances, and there is a sense of being in a state of
contemplation of God, and a general absorption of attention
in interest in the Divine Reality. At the same time, the
Name of God, or simple recollection of the Divine Presence,
should occupy the mind under all circumstances. As actions
and breaths arise, the Name of God (or, its "meaning," which
is the Divine Present Reality as a Condition prior to body,
breath, and mind) should be contemplated. Thus, in effect,
one watches the world, all actions, all thoughts, and every
breath, but all the time contemplates the Divine with or
from the heart, which is one's very being, open as attention
and love. When all three aspects of this process have become
one, and, in meditation, regularly proceed to the point
where thoughts come to rest and a state of loving
contemplation (open, relaxed attention of body, breath, and
mind) of the felt and intuited Divine appears, then the
mature evidence of this stage is approaching.
When the natural, easy control of
life and the enjoyment of contemplation, with rest of body,
breath, and mind,_ stabilize, and the individual, on the
basis of both contemplation of the Divine Presence and study
of the Teaching, feels inclined toward a radical enjoyment
of the Divine and is not obsessed with either gross or
subtle possibilities, then he or she may begin formal study
of the processes of the Way of Relational
Enquiry.
6.25
Reception-release equals conscious
acceptance and rejection.
The usual man is self-meditative,
and thus is embedded in a fixed ritual of reaction to his
own condition of being accepted or rejected by what is
outside himself. He is in emotional need of acceptance, and
suffers chronic reaction (in the form of habits of action)
to felt rejection. This combined need and reaction is the
core of the emotional and active life of the usual
man.
The conscious man lives as
relationship, not self-meditation. He participates in a
universal process with each breath. He accepts-receives and
rejects-releases in relationship, relative to the Divine and
the particular conditions of experience. And the personal
conditions of his own status, of being either accepted or
rejected, are constantly being released by him, along with
all self-meditative needs and reactions. In place of such a
theatre of life, he puts reception-release of the Divine
Transforming Power.
Only such a one is capable of real
intelligence, humor, self-control, freedom, and truly human
and moral responses to the conditions of life. Such a one
can judge the conditions of experience intelligently, and
release or reject what is a failure of the Law, or
Sacrifice, as well as receive or accept what is a
fulfillment of the Law. Such a one may, therefore, lead a
creative and effective life of action, in
freedom.
6.26
The process of reception-release
realized in spiritual practice of the Way of Divine
Communion is not founded in psychic submission to magical
interests, or self-possessed resort to subtle means or
sources of power, effect, or change, but in whole-body
submission, or sacrifice of the entire being, to the very
Divine, prior to self and dilemma and circumstance. The
Divine Presence is to be received as one's prior, present,
and Real Condition, and all presently manifest or effective
conditions (desirable or undesirable) are to be released to
the prior Divine Presence and Condition. No doubt the
universal or cosmic process that is magical in nature,
whereby all conditions move through changes in a manner that
is not merely physical but psycho-physical, will be observed
in such practice, but, as the devotee matures, all such
knowledge and its motivations will likewise be released in
Ignorance.
The relations between body and
breath and emotion and mind and experience and environments
are inherently magical, a symphony of simultaneous and
mutual causes, and the devotee may become sympathetically
attuned to the profusion of magical possibilities, but the
Way of Divine Ignorance, or Devotional Sacrifice, is the Way
of release from all conditional fascinations and
obligations.
There is no objection to ordinary,
disciplined, and self-surrendered application of truly
Lawful principles in the conventional round of living. Such
principles are expressions of whole-body orientation, in
which neither the elemental body nor the etheric and
life-force dimension nor the mental and conventionally
psychic dimension of the whole-body is exploited
independently, as a strategic tool relative to the others.
However, the way of knowledge, the craving and mediumistic
disposition of magic or psychism, and the whole ritual of
delusion that comes with devotion to changes rather than God
must be undone in us, or we remain focused in dreaming and
cannot awaken.
The whole affair of hopeful and
peculiar magic and, ultimately, the usual mysticism
(invocation of and absorption in the higher by what is
lower) belongs to the conventional, egoic, problem-solving,
and bound-up life of our ordinary birth. Every individual
will tend, at some stage, to be fascinated by the
possibilities of extraordinary effect and experience. Thus,
the process of the extraordinary may become, at various
phases of the devotional practice of the Way, a matter of
experience and consideration. All devotees should, however,
resort only to the Truth in Ignorance, not to the ways of
knowledge and magical, spiritualistic, conventionally
psychic, or worldly power. They should resort to the Divine
in Ignorance, on the basis of transformative hearing, or
conviction realized in confrontation with the critical
argument and initiatory Company of the Spiritual
Master.
Fulfillment or Happiness is not
found via any arising but only in prior Intuition of the
Condition of all arising. Therefore, practice the Way in
Ignorance and precisely as it is communicated to you.
Abandon all previous mystical, magical, vitalistic,
spiritualistic, mediumistic, and conventionally psychic
practices. Be released from all fascination and peculiar
hopes or designs. Allow the very Divine to be sufficient,
and choose the Divine rather than any effects or conditions
in the realms of change.
The ordinary practice of the
disciplines or practical and spiritual conditions of this
Way of Sacrifice in Ignorance will demonstrate the optimum
pleasures of health, well-being, and circumstances of life
that are appropriate for us. There is no perfection of our
possibility altogether, but only a round of trial or
testing, and a degree of outward ease or pleasure of
circumstance that is not one fraction more or less than is
sufficient to test the devotee, or to console and delude the
usual man, but never to fulfill anyone absolutely. Our
conditions, positive or negative, only serve us truly as a
goad to more perfect fulfillment of the Law. If our
motivation is cure, acquisition, attainment, or change for
its own sake, the conditions of our experience, high or low,
only serve the dream of delusion and suffering.
Do not be concerned for cure or any
experience itself, or any wielding of power to make
fortunate changes, high or low. Do not be consoled. Serve
others by sacrifice, the relational discipline, and the
process in Ignorance, not by passion for effects,
fascinating causation, and all the habitual intensifications
of this stubborn dream of waking life.
6.27
The Way of Divine Communion is the
Way of dependence on the Divine Reality, the Power and
Condition that pervades all conditions, is prior to all
conditions, and is the Real Condition or Reality in which
all conditions appear, as objects, or modifications.
Therefore, the Way of Divine Communion is the way of faith.
It is active, present, functional or practical participation
in the Divine Form or Process. It is devotion, from the
heart (the central or psychic being, the subject of all
experiences, physical or mental, low or high) to the
all-pervading Divine.
The Divine may come to be felt over
against one's simple sense of existence as a Presence
pervading the being and all conditions. In the Company of
the Spiritual Master, the Divine is felt intuitively as a
Presence over against one's being, from the heart. The Way
of Divine Communion is devotion, surrender of body, life,
mind, self, and all circumstances, desires, and assumptions
into the Presence of the Divine. It is love, receptivity,
openness, release, and active dependence upon the
all-pervading Divine. It is constant reception of the Divine
Power, and acceptance of the transcendental Divine Power as
the Principle of all change, rather than acceptance of
conditions themselves and the tendencies that seem to fix
the conditions of the world. It is release of all
assumptions, all negative subconscious, unconscious, and
conscious beliefs and intentions, to the Divine, and
reception of the Divine Principle as the Power in all
events, allowing it to change all conditions from moment to
moment.
The usual man, and the usual
tendency in the life-center of each devotee, is bound to
patterns of reaction, negativity, compensation, and bad
expectations relative to conditions of the future. But such
tendencies are a magical technique or ritual that causes
experience to be repetitive, binding, terrible, and
inauspicious. If the devotee will practice functional
dependence on the Divine moment to moment, the conditions of
experience will begin to be transformed by the
transcendental and always benign Power of the Divine, rather
than the limited, preconceived, and arbitrary designs of
accumulated tendencies in and below thought.
This practice is the core of the
Way of Divine Communion. And it is most practical. It
involves moment to moment increase of attention to the
Divine Presence from the heart. It is constant, moment to
moment turning of attention from conditions or tendencies
(thoughts and feelings) themselves to the all-pervading
Divine. This must be felt attention, yielding of the whole
being, the whole of body, life, emotion, mind, knowledge,
self, destiny, and circumstance. This turning in every
moment, in every circumstance of conditions, internal or
external, is the principle of the practice of Communion or
dependence on the Divine. The practice itself is to combine
attention to the all-pervading Presence with a profound
functional exercise of reception and release, at first
through every form of ordinary action, and later also
coordinated with the breath.
Thus, under the conditions of any
moment, the devotee should turn the heart's attention from
the conditions themselves (circumstances, states, emotions,
thoughts, desires) to the all-pervading Divine. Once the
practical life of service to the Divine has matured, in each
moment of such attention the devotee should release the
feeling, the knowledge, and the belief in such conditions to
the all-pervading Divine via every exhalation of the breath.
Exhale and release all conditions to the Presence. Then,
with each inhalation of the breath, open to and receive the
Power and the conditions of the Divine. In this manner,
experience will become fluid, constantly changing, and more
and more positive.
The breath is the link between the
all-pervading Presence and the devotee. If mind, emotion,
and body are turned into attention to the all-pervading
Presence from the heart, then the breath becomes a process
or agent between the body-emotion-mind of the devotee and
the all-pervading Presence of the Divine. Thus, the Breath
of God is a true devotional process of real participation in
the life of faith, or dependence on the Power of God rather
than dependence on the power of events (past, present, or
future).
This practice of reception and
release is the core of the Way of Divine Communion. The
lawful practices and disciplines of life as service to the
Divine, natural participation in the Breath of God (that is,
breathing with the sense of abiding, receiving, and
releasing in the Reality and Presence that is the Divine),
and constant recollection, or heart-felt yielding of
attention to the Divine, which is the essential practice of
the Name of God, are a threefold practice of faith, of
dependence on God. In the case of the true devotee, the
worlds of experience are realized as the present Play of
God, and everything works together to instruct, enlighten,
heal, and positively transform such a devotee.
All chronic, negative, and ritual
patterns or tendencies of psyche, life, and experience must
be breathed out by the devotee and yielded into the all
pervading Divine Presence. And the devotee must adapt his
living to an ever more intensified, intelligent, lawful,
disciplined, full, responsible, pleasurable, and happy life
by constantly receiving and accepting the Diving Power,
which is the power of Creativity, transformation, change,
and perfection. Just so each inhalation must be a reception
of the benignly transforming Power, without concerns or
preconceived designs on the part of the devotee. Live by
faith, not by design. Designs will appear on their own.
Simply adapt to them anew in each moment, and release them
in each moment, but leave their creation to the imposing
Power of the Real or God.
Devotees must mature in this
practice by constant but unconcerned effort and testing
under the real circumstances of life. Only when they have
matured to the point of steady contemplation of and
commitment to the Divine, and to natural discipline, as well
as freedom from all concerns, can the practices of the Way
of Relational Enquiry and then the Way of Recognition be
engaged. These practices depend on growth in faith by
practice of dependence on Grace. Before the devotee can go
on to realize identity with the Divine, he or she must first
have realized happiness in and dependence on the Divine, so
that all commitment of the being is to the Divine Process
rather than the conventional inclinations, bodily,
emotional, and mental, of the usual or karmic
individual.
First cease to be a fool by
submission to the test of the constant Presence of God, with
every breath, in the midst of the factual conditions of your
life. Only then can the Divine be of use to you through the
special agency and Teaching of Bubba Free John.
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